Tuesday 28 August 2018

Robin Durnford : part one


Robin Durnford was born in St. John’s and grew up on the west coast of Newfoundland. She is the author of three books of poetry: A Lovely Gutting (McGill-Queen’s 2012), Fog of the Outport (Jackpine 2013), and Half Rock (Gaspereau 2016). She now lives in Montreal.

What are you working on?

A collection called Gap-Toothed Girl about the gaps and spaces in my own identity (I literally have a gap tooth which I’m partly proud of and partly ashamed of). The collection’s about the parts that don’t seem to fit. When I look at other people they always seem so ‘together’ and whole and sure and fully formed. They are who they are. I always feel uncertain. My identity shifts all the time. One day I feel really feminine, the next I’m more masculine. Most days I’m Sam’s mom, but I don’t want that to be my whole identity either. I want to go out to dinner with my husband and have sex afterwards. My commie-pinko politics has mostly stayed the same for the last twenty years, but I don’t like checked box liberalism or leftism. I need to have the power to dissent, to disagree, to be cantankerous, but also to be loveable! The voice, though. I hope my poetic voice holds the poems, and so my self, together.


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